Dark Arts and Moonlight
by kirameru1701
Summary: Severus and Lily love each other, but neither one of them knows that the other one feels that way. And Lily learning of Severus's obsession with the Dark Arts certainly doesn't help. Marauder-era, SeverusxLily, AU.
1. Lily's Letter

(A/N: If you have a problem with angst, you need to stop reading this right now and go read something written by someone who likes happy, untroubled romances. Also, James might be a bit OOC, but it doesn't matter, because he's only sort of important for this story.)

* * *

Lily Evans sat slumped in her favorite leather armchair in front of the fire blazing on the hearth of the Gryffindor common room. She stared into the flickering orange flames, trying not to think about him, but failing quite spectacularly.

"Damn you, Severus Snape," she muttered under her breath, a tear slipping down towards the corner of her lips as she did so. Why did he have to be so cold to her, so heartless, but most of all, why did he have to go ruining his life by studying the Dark Arts? Lily didn't notice her fingernails puncture the cracked brown leather of her chair, or the questioning stares of her classmates that inevitably resulted from the small noises it made. Someone dropped a box of chocolate truffles in her lap - she looked up briefly to see who it was. "Potter."

"Lily, I don't know what happened, but I want you to know that, whatever it was, I'm sorry." James Potter looked earnest enough, but Lily knew better than to trust him, especially when he was so joyous in the face of her overwhelming misery.

"You wouldn't understand, and even if you could, I wouldn't want you to," she managed to choke out before she started crying again.

"But Lily, it's Christmas Eve. And besides, no one should be as miserable as you are, holiday or not." He sat on the floor in front of her, using one hand to push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, and Lily felt a flicker of annoyance at this recurrent habit. "I know you like chocolate." He gestured to the box that rested on her thighs.

"Merlin help you if you don't either shut up or go away this instant, Potter." She raised her eyes to meet his, and there was a brief moment during which James thought she would actually murder him, regardless of the company they were in. He flinched instinctively when she reached into her robes, thinking that she was going to pull out her wand and hex him, but instead her hand emerged with a scrap of blank parchment clutched between her slender fingers. Setting it down on the nearest table, she reached for a quill and scribbled out a note that James, fearing for his personal safety, didn't dare try to read.

Lily was writing too quickly to bother worrying about her handwriting, or about the tears that threatened to drip onto the parchment. She knew she had to get this over with before the magnitude of her actions came crashing down on her shoulders, because if that happened, she would never be able to finish the note.

_Severus,_

_I'm sorry for reacting so negatively, but I just don't think that at our age, or at any age really, should anyone be studying something as dangerous and evil as the Dark Arts. I really do -_

Here Lily stopped for a moment to think, quill poised to write down the next words in her frantic letter. She knew she couldn't tell him what she was actually thinking, although her quill jerked dangerously close to the paper and the ink had formed the first two letters of "- _love you_ -" before she stopped herself, realizing that there was no way in the world that she could ever tell him that. Instead, she crossed it out (very thoroughly) and replaced it with:

_- still want to be friends - meet me in the Astronomy Tower tonight at 2 if you can._

_Lily_

Fingers shaking, she folded the note and ran up to her dormitory, tying it hastily to the leg of her nondescript brown owl. "Take this to Severus," she whispered to it as she opened the window, and with a soft hoot, her owl flew off. Lily didn't know how her owl managed to get into the Slytherin dormitories, since they were located under the lake, but what mattered was that it was possible. She watched as the little brown speck of a bird dove down and disappeared over the cliffs.

With a sigh, Lily sank down on her bed. Now, there was nothing to do but wait.


	2. Where's Lucius?

(A/N: If I get something "wrong", such as Lucius and Severus being in the same year at school, most likely I know that I'm getting it "wrong" and I just don't care. After all, they don't call it AU for nothing. I also know that you're extremely disappointed with me for taking so long with this chapter, especially since it's so pathetic, and I have no excuse. I hope I write the third chapter more quickly, and a lot better, than I wrote this one.)

* * *

Severus stormed angrily into his dormitory, his lips pressed into a thin line as he threw himself face-down onto his bed and reached compulsively for his Potions textbook.

"Wonder what's got into him."

"Probably something to do with his little Mudblood girlfriend." Goyle and Crabbe laughed loudly, muffin crumbs falling out of their open mouths and sticking to their robes and the carpet.

"Where's Lucius?" Severus asked quietly as he flipped through the pages of his textbook, trying in vain to find an instruction he hadn't corrected yet. Anything to busy his mind would be greatly appreciated.

"Not here."

"Obviously."

"Yeah, where's Lucius?" asked Goyle, spraying more pieces of half-chewed muffin all over himself and his companion.

Severus sat up, his back against the headboard and his legs stretched out in front of him. "Wherever he is, he's most likely lamenting his lack of intellectual companionship," he muttered before leaning his head back and closing his eyes.

After a few seconds, Crabbe spoke up (a rare event indeed). "You think he's asleep?"

"Maybe."

"You think we should tell him about the letter?"

Severus opened his eyes. "What letter?"

Crabbe and Goyle just looked at each other, swaying back and forth uncertainly until Severus accio-ed the letter out of Crabbe's pocket.

He read the letter, his eyes moving back and forth quickly; once, then twice. _I really do still want to be friends_...

* * *

(A/N: What a short, low-quality chapter from such a long wait! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Next chapter, Severus goes to find Lucius ... sorry, sorry, I know you want to see the Astronomy Tower meeting. But personally, I don't feel like this chapter builds enough suspense. And so, although I know you hate me, and I know that this chapter doesn't really accomplish anything, I'm still making you wait. But I will try to update faster! Oh, and, review please!)


	3. The Balcony

(A/N: I updated quickly-ish! This is another chapter that doesn't resolve a whole lot with regards to the main story, but it sets up some important background stuff. Plus, this story is just getting more and more fun to write! Oh, and I feel that I need to warn you that, despite whatever you want to read into this chapter, this story isn't a slash story. If you'd like one, I can certainly oblige, but this one isn't it.)

* * *

The balcony had a grim mood hanging about it, but it was a tentative melancholy, as if at any moment you could peel away the thin film of desolation to reveal something with a grand history. It could have been resplendent in shining tapestries, banners hanging proud from the stone columns and music blaring to the cold night sky.

But Lucius Malfoy preferred it this way rather than that, its shadows ripe with unspent potential, its silver stones glistening in the hard rain that turned the floor to a slick beneath your feet. No one else ever came here, barring a couple of his closest friends, and certainly no one else ever came uninvited.

Apparently, however, that had changed.

"Severus." It could only be him - the quiet, almost undetectable footsteps, the surreptitious tendrils probing out from his mind into the thoughts of anyone nearby. Yes, he was altogether too recognizable.

"I know we have played at this for far too many years when you recognize me so easily. Or perhaps I should be glad that I am worth remembering?" His voice rippled across the wind like a ribbon of finest satin.

Lucius's jaw clenched and he turned abruptly to face his friend, the swish of his robes about his boots seeming rather loud even in the short silence that had grown between them. "You want something." His voice held the air more of a bitterly spoken decree than of anything close to a questioning tone.

A small smile crawled onto Severus's face. "Just the pleasure of your company."

Lucius scowled, tilting his chin up slightly and drawing himself to his full height. "Really, you must learn to lie less conspicuously. It hardly becomes you to speak in such a patently fraudulent manner."

"And you should know by now that using such frivolous language will earn you no favor with me."

Both boys were smiling now as Severus stepped up next to Lucius, resting his elbows lightly on the heavy stone balustrade and taking one of Lucius's hands in both of his own.

"Do me a favor?"

"Anything for you."

Severus found himself very close to rolling his eyes at that statement. Sometimes it was nearly funny, the lies that Lucius could conjure to keep himself happy. "Don't become a politician. It wouldn't suit you." He paused, his smile vanishing as he looked out across the Black Lake before continuing. "Oh - and do tell me why you've been avoiding me."

Lucius bit down compulsively on the corner of his lower lip. "I'm not avoiding you."

"Lying's a bad habit, you know."

"You're lying."

"But are you saying that I'm lying when I tell you that you're lying, or are you saying that I'm lying when I tell you that lying is a bad habit? Because one way, I have a bad habit but you don't, but the other way, I'm just lying about it being a bad habit, even though it wouldn't have any bearing on whether or not you're lying. But if you're lying when you say that I'm lying, then that increases the possibilites dramatically."

"What?"

"Do you need me to diagram it for you? What I'm trying to say is that it doesn't mean anything."

"And I still haven't been avoiding you."

"If either one of us is lying, then we've found a way to make almost anything mean nothing at all."

"And that's really very nice, but - look at me, Sev. No, I mean it." Lucius's voice dropped to a whisper as his friend turned to watch him with such frightening intensity that, just for a moment, his eyes seemed darker than even the Lake. "I have things to do, plans to make. There are some things that I just can't learn in school, some skills that simply aren't taught -"

"You're referring to the Inner Circle, aren't you." Severus didn't even have to reach into his friend's mind to read the agreement written in his icy silence. "I'm not anyone of consequence to the rest of the world, Lucius. But I do have certain talents, abilities that go far deeper than my aptitude for potions or for experimental hexes. And as such, I'm a member of the Inner Circle. Part of the elite, as it were. Ironic, isn't it?"

"Not really. You never were as far from the elite groups as you thought."

Severus's narrow lips twisted into another smile. "Of course not. Now if you don't mind, my dear, I have an appointment to keep." He brought his hands back into the pockets of his cloak as he left the balcony, leaving not so much as the sound of footsteps behind him.

* * *

(A/N: Next chapter - Severus meets Lily on the Astronomy Tower. I hope I can find a more consistent writing style somewhere in the next few chapters, since these first three are quite stylistically inconsistent.)

(A/N 2: The "Inner Circle" is the elite circle of Death Eaters - they're the Dark Lord's closest associates and confidantes, if he has such a thing (oh, the glory of AU). It's probably just going to be Severus, maybe Lucius, and, in a few years, Barty Jr. I consider the Inner Circle something of a repository for all my favorite Death Eaters.)


End file.
